


Classical Conditioning

by smolonde



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Canonical Child Abuse, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-30
Updated: 2015-06-30
Packaged: 2018-04-07 01:01:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4243509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smolonde/pseuds/smolonde
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A look into Dave's life with Bro before the game.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Classical Conditioning

**Author's Note:**

> Classical conditioning-The immediate association of a stimuli, verbal or nonverbal, with an action or a thought.

You’re four years old the day Bro leaves for the first time.

You wake to a silence, one that would normally be filled with the sound of the TV or Bro’s footsteps and soft humming. As you stir, rubbing your eyes with your tiny fists, a realization hits you for the first of many times. Bro is gone.

Your small apartment echoes with the sound of your wail as you run around in a panic. Where is he? Maybe he’s just playing a game of hide-and-seek with you; you played it on your birthday a few weeks ago. You search under your couch, under the turntables and both your beds. You even look in the towering fridge, finding nothing except a katana, the butt of which falls straight onto your eye as you look up. You cry out in pain, falling on the tile as the katana clatters to the ground. You sob loudly, your mouth caving open to show the gap where your front tooth used to be. As soon as you see the blood out of your good eye, you start to scream, catching sight of the white tooth on the floor. The blood flows from your gums, and for the first time since you woke up, you shout a word, with a cracking voice and a fresh sob in your throat.

                                                                                ****

When he comes back in two days, you’re passed out on the kitchen floor. You’ve been living off apple juice and cookies that were in the bottom cabinet, as you can’t reach the ones above the counter. You tried to clean up the blood with a dish towel, but you couldn’t reach the tap either, so you just ended up spreading it around the tiles. Your eye is swollen, black and blue and yellow, and there’s a gash above your eyebrow. You’ve been so hungry for the last two days that you’ve been drifting in and out of consciousness. And then finally, finally, the window creaks open, and he’s flash-stepped to your side in a blast of hot Texas air. He scoops you up, forces you to eat some cold leftovers that you hadn’t been able to grab, and puts you in bed. He mutters something about how you lost your first tooth, then takes the object in question and throws it out the window. You ask him _What about the tooth fairy_? And he smirks at you, spitting out the words harshly.

_Fairies aren’t real, kid. The sooner you learn that, the sooner you’ll be a real man._

As you drift off to sleep, the dull throbbing in your eye making you sluggish, you realized he hasn’t shown any sorrow.

                                                                                ****

Your sixth birthday has just arrived, and you know better to expect cake and presents. In the last two years, Bro has been in and out of the apartment, barely looking at you. When you tried to hug him once, he shoved you onto your back, laughing. _That shit’s for babies,_ he said. _You’re no kid, you’re a man._ When you cried for him to stay, no matter how many tears you let loose, he looked at you with hatred on his face. _You’re a fuckin’ sissy,_ he said, and then he was gone in a nanosecond.

You didn’t expect him to even remember, but when he wakes you at the crack of dawn the next morning, he nods and acknowledges the day in a short grunt. When you ask him why he woke you up so early, he says he has something to show you. In an instant you’re awake. You ask him, with an excited smile on your face, if it’s a present. He looks at you with irritation. _Stop being so gay._ You don’t know what that word means, but the way Bro says it, it sounds worse than any of the other bad words you’ve ever heard. _Fuck_ and _shit_ are casually thrown around in your house, like a ball being lazily tossed into the air, and while he says _gay_ fairly often, it’s with a different inflection; one of disgust and hate.

Your face falls, changing in an instant when you remember what he said the first time you cried. While your mouth is stoic, your eyes prickle with tears behind your shades, but you will them away.

Bro blindfolds you, takes you onto the roof, and hands you a wrapped, oblong box. You gasp with joy, realizing that he’s bought you a present, and you open it with shaking hands.

It’s a sword, the black handle polished and shiny. The blade shimmers in the rising sun, and you look at it, your mouth dropped open in surprise. You look up, searching for Bro, but he’s nowhere to be seen.

And then you’re face down on the gravel, your cheek scraped and bleeding from the force of having your feet kicked out from under you.

Bro stands above you, yelling down at you. _Fight back, you little shit._ Tears are streaming down your face, but Bro draws his own sword out of thin air and rushes at you. Instinctively, you block him and roll out from under him. He looks at you with a mild smirk. _Guess you’re not so dumb after all._

And he comes at you again.

By the time afternoon comes, you’re on your back on the hot gravel, staring at the heatwaves in the sky. Your face is bloodied and scratched from where you hit the gravel, as well as where Bro managed to get some punches in. Your scrawny chest is cut from the jabs that Bro made with his katana, and there’s a crisscross of scratches along your back. Your muscles are sore, your body hurts everywhere, and your eyes are watering from the heat.

And of course, Bro is nowhere to be found.

                                                                                *****

Your fourth-grade teacher has sent you to the health office. She tells you to get balm for a nasty gash you got while trying to scale the school’s chain-link fence. When you walk into the nurse’s office, you show her where your cut is on your shoulder, and she asks you to take your shirt off so that she can apply the balm along the length of the wound. You wordlessly shake your head, asking if you can just get an ice pack instead, or if you can apply the balm yourself. The nurse looks at you sternly, saying that she wants to make sure it’s done correctly, and that an ice pack can help turn the wound septic. You don’t know what that means, but you nod, and you lift your shirt up over your head. The nurse gasps, and you can’t say you blame her.

Your chest is riddled with sores and scars, fresh red marks standing proud against your pale skin. The scabbed-over wounds, made by a sword that you couldn’t dodge fast enough, are starting to peel. The sores are starting to pus, and you think they might be infected, but you’ve lived with that before, and the worst that can happen is some scarring. Your long-sleeved shirt hides the bruises in the shape of hands on your arms. The skin on your back is rubbed raw from constantly falling onto the gravel. Bro is careful to leave most of your injuries below the neck, or he is now that the neighbors have started to whisper.

The nurse looks at you, then starts applying the balm. You don’t say a word, and neither does she.

                                                                                *****

You’re lying in bed with your phone, Bro’s gift for your tenth birthday, texting your best friend, John. You’re talking about his dad, and how annoying his constant baking is. And then you get a text that makes you freeze up.

_What about your brother? What’s he like?_

You flash back in a millisecond, your eyes widening. Bro leaning down over you, blood trickling from your split lip to the concrete of the roof. Bro laughing at you as you struggle to get up, your arms sore and useless from swinging a sword all day. Bro spitting in your face, calling you a weakling when he kicks you in the chest and sends you flying back into the wall. Bro sneaking around at night, putting up cameras in the walls of your house. Bro leaving his browser open on a webpage that shows a 24-hour livecam into your room, which has a list of comments below it, old men’s profiles saying things about you that you don’t understand. Bro talking to you for the first time about his Smuppets and what he does with them. Bro smirking at your disgusted expression, saying that you’d better get used to that idea.

Your fingers type out a response somewhere between memories.

_He’s only the coolest dude in the history of swag._

                                                                                *****

You open the box, seeing a pair of rounded sunglasses, and your heart stops. John’s scrawl is on the bottom of the box, wishing you a happy thirteenth birthday. You don’t touch the new shades, but you do take off your old ones. Your red eyes bore into the triangle shades sitting on the table next to you, remembering another pair of eyes staring at you from the same pair of glasses, filled with rage and fire, watching you fall onto your back.

And you sweep the triangle shades off your desk and into the trash can.

                                                                                ******

You’re in your room, John’s thirteenth birthday having just arrived. While you message him, talking about the sweet new game you and your other friends are going to play, you catch sight of a movement out of the corner of your eye. You know that flash far too well, but you still jump in surprise when you see Lil’ Cal directly behind you. You attempt to remain stoic, but when he comes closer, you back away and eventually try to barricade yourself in your room. This doesn’t help any; a note is left on the opening leading to the rooftop. You know what it says before you read it; the result of this letter is you ending up beaten and bloody on the rooftop.

So you head up, steeling yourself like you’ve been doing for seven years.

                                                                                *******

Your green suit is stained with red, more blood than you’ve ever seen spilled across the thin fabric. Terezi is pestering you, but your mind is wiped clear by the sight of a body in front of you.

Bro is lying on his back, a sword impaled all the way through his chest. An old bloodstain, so old it’s turned black, spreads from the center of his shirt, and his white teeth are caked with blood that he must have tried to cough out before he died.

Your throat closes, and you feel a sob in your gut. You haven’t cried for years, not since you were six and Bro kicked your ass for the first time. And deep in your mind, a voice stirs. _You gonna cry? Fuckin’ sissy._

So you don’t cry. You get up, pull the sword out of his chest, and leave his corpse behind. You head to your quest bed, lie down, and fall asleep to the memories of steel blades on your skin.

                                                                                *******

The shouty douchebag is exactly the same in person, and you feel yourself hit it off with the guy immediately. Your friendship, at least you think that’s what your feelings for him are, is strong. That is, until the day in Cantown.

Karkat’s fingers grip a can, and you help him and the Mayor stack the tower. What you’re not expecting is Karkat’s hand to close on yours, and when you look up, preparing to apologize for touching him, he looks you straight in the eyes. He says your name almost reverently, and you hold his gaze from behind your shades. And then he leans in.

Before his lips can touch yours, you are up and walking swiftly away from him.

Another voice, one that doesn’t belong to Karkat, chases you down the hallway. _I always knew that you were gonna end up gay._

                                                                                ******

You don’t want him to follow you, but that doesn’t stop you from accepting a kiss pressed to your lips.

Your mouth is dry from anxiety, but the feel of his lips on yours distracts you, and his warm hands are on your back. Your heart quickens, and you can’t remember a time that you’ve felt so at home. At the same time, something holds you back, something stops you from kissing back quite as hard as you want to, something keeps your arms at your sides instead of wrapped around Karkat’s neck, where they should be.

He pulls away, looking at you with something like fear, and you turn your face. You sit down on the cold meteor floor, closing your eyes under your shades. And you feel a hand on yours. Your eyes open to see a pair of yellow eyes looking at you with concern, and for the first time in almost ten years, a tear trickles from your eye.

                                                                                *******

The warm shower water stops raining onto your body, and you wrap a towel, soft and fuzzy, around your waist. You come out into your room, and you almost jump a foot when you see Karkat sitting on your bed. His mouth drops open, like the school nurse’s eight years ago.

Your wounds have been healed for three years, but your torso is still scarred. Your chest is puckered with the scars left by your brother, and there’s a long, ugly scar from the time that he pinned you down and scraped his sword down your stomach. Your back is still riddled with skin aberrations, a goodbye from the sores that once festered on you.

Karkat looks at you, saying your name once in shock, then again with more insistence. He reaches out to touch the scar on your stomach, and when his fingers come in contact with your still-warm skin, you start. You hold his eyes with yours, shadeless for once, and then you turn and lock yourself in the bathroom. Karkat pounds on the door, but you shut your eyes and sit against it, feeling the vibrations from the knocking making their way under your skin.

                                                                                ********

Vriska aims the gun into the sky, the scope trained on something that is hurtling towards you at top speed. And in a moment, he’s on his back, his flying ass hitting you in the face. You scramble away on your hands, then stop when you catch his eyes under your shades. The bright orange that you remember so well shines from under the pointed shades. You look up and down the rest of his body, but you can’t find a single trace of the brother that you knew.

You’re not sure whether that’s a good thing.


End file.
